Check out a Magnum Photos gallery of parking and parking meters . Seventy-five years ago, the world's first parking meter cast its thin, ominous shadow on the streets of Oklahoma City. The meter was the brainchild of Carlton C. Magee, a local publisher and Chamber of Commerce Traffic Committee chief, and he hoped it would solve the city's chronic parking problems. In the pre-meter days, police would drive around with stopwatches and chalk, enforcing the city's parking time limits by marking the tires of cars seen squatting for too long, but the system was ill-equipped to handle the "endemic overparking" problem. Even worse, a survey found that at any given time, 80 percent of the city's spots were occupied by employees of downtown businesses—the very same businesses complaining that lack of parking was driving away shoppers. Calling for an "efficient, impartial, and thoroughly practical aid to parking regulation," Magee held a student-design contest and launched his instrument. Magee's meter was crude—only later models had the red "expired" warning flag—and its mechanism was hardly Swiss in its movements.

(In an Einsteinian turn, early meters were often said to "shorten time.") But McGee's device was effective—a spark cast upon the vast, dry tinder of congested downtowns. "The parking meter's rapid and eventually universal spread can be understood on at least two grounds," write John Jakle and Keith Sculle in their illuminating book Lots of Parking . First, meters did the job, ensuring a steadier supply of parking by increasing turnover. Second, they took what had been a "free" good—free only in the sense it was not charged for on the spot—and turned it into a viable revenue stream for cities. Advertisement And a perpetual irritant for motorists. Parking meters are hacked (check youtube), stolen (watch Cool Hand Luke ), and otherwise subjected to a variety of abuse ( physical and even sexual assaults)—as are those charged with their enforcement . Is it that we simply don't like to pay for what we think should be free? Or is it something deeper—does their ruthless ticking not serve as some stark reminder of our mortality? (" Time Expired .") Whatever the reason, parking meters are loved only when they are broken. Three-quarters of a century on, several things are clear.

The first is that parking meters, a seemingly mundane fact of the urban landscape, remain as fraught and controversial as when they were first installed. And secondly, the time has finally come for a sweeping rethink of the parking meter—in part because of changes in technology, and in part because of an emerging change in the way we think about parking in cities. Early on, parking meters weren't usually installed wholesale, notes parking scholar Donald Shoup. In his book, The High Cost of Free Parking , he writes that Oklahoma City began with a trial on only one side of the street. "On the unmetered side is confusion," noted the city's manager. "On the metered side is order, sufficient room for every car to be parked and driven out quickly and easily, and there are usually parking spaces open." Two years later, Shoup writes, there were more than 20,000 meters in 35 cities. There were objections.

When the Merchants Association suggested meters for New York City in 1936, it was greeted by a legal challenge from the local Automobile Club, which declared, as reported in the New York Times, that neither the state nor city had the "power to charge the owners of automobiles for parking in the streets, for any purpose whatsoever, whether it be to raise revenue or to regulate traffic." That same year, borough president Samuel Levy declared the parking meter "has no place upon the city streets." Indeed, while the image of New York City is now irrevocably bound up with arcane parking regulations and meters—and one might imagine them as the product of the congested, big-government East Coast, not a wildcatting, low-tax Western city—it was not until 1951 that the first meters hit Gotham. Advertisement Meters came even later to London. The first sixpence, notes historian Joe Moran, was pressed into a meter in Mayfair in 1958, sparking some populist resistance.

("They've stuck parking meters/ outside our doors to greet us," sang Max Bygraves—and, yes, the couplet rhymes—in his 1960 song "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'be," a sort of Cockney version of Merle Haggard's "That's the Way It Was in '51.") * Although meters soon became widespread, it was a long time before we understood how they changed American parking. Let the questions unspool in your mind: How long do drivers park at meters? How many go over the limit? How many drivers are ticketed? How many meters fail?

In 1987, Aaron Adiv and Wanzhi Wang produced a wonderfully detailed paper titled "On Street-Parking Meter Behavior," an effort to combat what they called "a lack of systematic knowledge about parking behavior at parking meters." Among the more interesting findings of the study (which looked at Ann Arbor, Mich., but whose findings, according to the authors, were representative of much of the United States): That meter occupancy was nearly 100 percent; that four in five parkers used the meters for less than an hour; that the "real cost" to parkers of fees and fines had actually declined over the past few decades; and, strikingly, that enforcement is quite low. Only 8.1 percent of violations were ticketed, they found, and "exceeded time—the hours taken up by cars parked illegally once the meter expires—used up 25 percent of the total "space-hours," reducing capacity by as much as 61 percent. On this last point, the authors suggested that a private-public partnership might help raise enforcement levels, turnover, and revenues.

And this is exactly what has happened in Chicago (which in 2008 sold the rights to its meters, for the next 75 years, to Morgan Stanley; the Chicago Reader provides the fullest account ), and may soon happen in other cities, including Pittsburgh and Indianapolis. Advertisement Are such initiatives good for cities, and for drivers? At the very least, they're good for the private companies that run them. Whether by lack of competence or lack of political will, cities are highly ineffective in extracting money out of meters. But as the Chicago News Cooperative has reported , Chicago Parking Meters, the consortium that now (with Morgan Stanley as a controlling interest) runs the city's meters, collected $73 million in its first year of operation—more than three times the city's average take—by increasing enforcement and raising rates. In theory, there is nothing wrong with this. Poor enforcement makes parking effectively cheaper, distorting the supply and demand of the parking market. And, as transportation planners like Shoup argue, much urban on-street parking is underpriced already—which is a problem, since drivers looking for cheap parking contribute greatly to congestion. Cheap parking costs us in time.

But, apart from the widely held idea that Chicago gave away its 36,000 meters too cheaply ($1.15 billion for the 75-year term), there are other reasons to question the arrangement. For one, part of Shoup's idea of raising meter prices with a goal of 85 percent occupancy—thus ensuring turnover and reducing the time drivers spend cruising for spaces—is that increased revenues would be plowed back into improving the neighborhoods where the meters are found (what Shoup calls "parking benefit districts"). Other scholars such as David Hoyt suggests such revenues might even support "related public goods such as a modernized transportation system." But this prospect, Hoyt notes, "is entirely lost in the Morgan Stanley privatization deal. What could be a long-term revenue generator for a city in budgetary crisis and with an enormous backlog of deferred public transportation maintenance has been traded for a one-time fix in operating revenue." Rather than increased parking prices helping pay for better public transportation, the bank is banking on the lack of public transportation in its profit picture.

As a Moody's analyst wrote , "public transportation is not convenient to areas of the parking system outside of the central business district, which are expected to generate the majority of revenues." There are other problems, argues urban planner Aaron Renn , in the city locking up its parking policy for the next 75 years. Seventy-five years ago we did not have paid on-street parking; who knows what the parking future will bring? "Parking spots," writes Renn, "are the curb lane of your streets. Your streets are the primary public space in your city. They are intimately connected with everything that happens in the city." The deal, he argues, assigns a "property right interest in the biggest component of public space in the city to a private monopoly that doesn't have the public's best interests at heart. The city of Chicago has ceded a portion of its urban planning powers to a private company." Advertisement Of course, most people don't really pause to think of parking meters as integral to wider transportation issues, or even as public space.

As planner Paul Barter , writing about Park(ing) Day , the now global project in which people commandeer parking spaces to display art, have a picnic, or pretty much do anything but park a car, observes, "I suspect that most people don't really think of 'feeding the parking meter' as some kind of rental payment for real-estate space. If motorists really did see it that way, it might be a lot easier for cities to bring in rational parking pricing policies." But rationality often is left at the curb when it comes to paid parking—and the meters that enforce it. Barter contends that we see meter fees as yet another tax; in his novel Millennium People , J.G. Ballard, suggesting that "the bourgeoisie are the new proletariat," includes the vandalism of parking meters in his taxonomy of new class rage. And a onetime viewing of the show Parking Wars will confirm this sense of motorist persecution—and conversely, entitlement. "It's a controversy in every city," Andrew Dunn, the show's producer, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "People feel entitled to parking without paying.

It's like free air." In New York City and other places, parking meter "grace periods"—an extra five minutes for someone whose meter has expired—have been floated for lazy political gain. But such plans merely postpone and complicate the inevitable confrontation with the hapless traffic agent; not to mention that your five minutes of grace is everyone else's parking hell. And to quote Bike Snob : "Why do we—a people who are supposed to be the hardiest, savviest urbanites in the United States (if not the entire Western world)—need an extra five minutes to move our cars? … [W]e're so fast that they actually named a unit of time after us." There is hope on the horizon, however: The eventual abolishment of the parking meter. I am not talking here about removing paid parking altogether as some cities, seemingly ignoring the lessons of the past, keep trying to do.

( Eugene, Ore., recently removed parking meters and will go back to chalk-based enforcement, echoing that old refrain that parking meters drive away business; the city's parking manager observed, "we are counting on downtown businesses to police their own, as employee parking on street will make or break the program."Good luck with that.) Advertisement Rather, I'm talking about the advent of any number of new systems for paying for parking. There are, for example, pay-by-mobile-phone parking providers (for example, Parkmobile ), which require drivers to put the code of a parking space into an app rather than coins into a meter. There are also even simpler "park and walk away" systems, like one being tested in Winnipeg , Manitoba, which essentially put the meter in one's car. No more curbside confrontations, no more vandals jamming things in slots, no more overpaying for time you did not use, no more tickets because you were a few minutes late, no more bothering the dry cleaner for quarters. Now, pay your respects and go feed the meter. Like Slate on Facebook . Follow us on Twitter . Correction, Oct.

20, 2010: This article originally misspelled the last name of Max Bygraves. ( Return to the corrected sentence.) A History of Transportation A BRIEF HISTORY OF TRANSPORT By Tim Lambert Ancient Transportation The first form of transport was, of course, Shanks pony (the human foot!). However people eventually learned to use animals for transport. Donkeys and horses were probably domesticated between 4,000 and 3,000 BC (obviously the exact date is not known). Camels were domesticated slightly later between 3,000 and 2,000 BC. Meanwhile about 3,500 BC the wheel was invented in what is now Iraq. At first wheels were made of solid pieces of wood lashed together to form a circle but after 2,000 BC they were made with spokes. The earliest boats were dug out canoes. People lit a fire on a big log then put it out and dug out the burned wood. About 3,100 BC the Egyptians invented the sailing boat. They were made of bundles of papyrus reeds tied together. They had simple square sails made of sheets of papyrus or later of linen.

However the sail could only be used when sailing in one direction. When travelling against the wind the boat had to be rowed. About 2,700 BC the Egyptians began using wooden ships for trade by sea. Early ships were steered by a long oar. Roman Transportation The Romans are famous for the network of roads they built across the Empire. Roman legionaries built them so the Roman army could march from one part of the empire to another quickly. Rich people traveled by horse or on long journeys by covered wagon. Sometimes they were carried in litters (seats between two long poles). Transport by water was also important to the Romans. They built large merchant ships called cortia, which could carry up to 1,000 tons of cargo. Roman ships had a single main mast, which carried a rectangular sail, although some ships also had small sails at the bow and stern. Roman ships did not have rudders. Instead they were steered by oars. The Romans also built lighthouses to aid shipping. Life in Roman Britain Transportation in the Middle Ages After the fall of Rome transport became more primitive. Roads in Europe returned to being simple dirt tracks, which turned to mud in the Winter.

In the Middle Ages rich people sometimes traveled in covered wagons. They must have been very uncomfortable as they did not have suspension and roads were bumpy and rutted. Others traveled on a box between two poles. Two horses, one in front and one behind carried it. They were trained to walk at the same pace. However at sea a number of useful inventions were made. The Chinese invented the compass centuries before it was used in Europe. Nevertheless by the 12th century Europeans had learned to use it. Also in the 12th century Europeans invented the rudder. (The Chinese independently invented it centuries before). Rudders made ships much easier to steer. Furthermore Medieval shipbuilding became far more advanced and by the 15th century ships were made with 3 masts. Life in the Middle Ages Transportation in the 16th Century In Tudor times transport was still slow and uncomfortable. Roads were still just dirt tracks. Men were supposed, by law, to spend a number of days repairing the local roads but it is unlikely they did much good! People traveled by horse. You could either ride your own or you could hire a horse.

In Tudor times you would be lucky if you could travel 50 or 60 kilometers a day. It normally took a week to travel from London to Plymouth. However rich people deliberately traveled slowly. They felt it was undignified to hurry and they took their time. Goods were sometimes transported by pack horse (horses with bags on their sides). Also carriers with covered wagons carried goods and sometimes passengers. However when possible people preferred to transport goods by water. All around England there was a 'coastal trade'. Goods from one part of the country, such as coal, were taken by sea to other parts. Life in the 16th Century Transportation in the 17th Century Transport and communications improved in the 17th century. In 1600 the royal posts were exclusively used to carry the kings correspondence. However in 1635, to raise money, Charles I allowed members of the public to pay his messengers to carry letters. This was the start of the royal mail. From the middle of the 17th century stagecoaches ran regularly between the major towns. However they were very expensive and they must have been very uncomfortable without springs on rough roads.

There was also the danger of highwaymen . In 1663 the first Turnpike roads opened. You had to pay to use them. Meanwhile in towns wealthy people were carried in sedan chairs. Transportation in the 18th Century Transport was greatly improved during the 18th century. Groups of rich men formed turnpike trusts. Acts of Parliament gave them the right to improve and maintain certain roads. Travelers had to pay tolls to use them. The first turnpikes were created as early as 1663 but they became far more common in the 18th century. Transporting goods was also made much easier by digging canals. In the early 18th century goods were often transported by pack horse. Moving heavy goods was very expensive. However in 1759 the Duke of Bridgewater decided to build a canal to bring coal from his estate at Worsley to Manchester. He employed an engineer called James Brindley. When it was completed the Bridgewater canal halved the price of coal in Manchester. Many more canals were dug in the late 18th century and the early 19th century.

They played a major role in the industrial revolution by making it cheaper to transport goods. Meanwhile in France the Montgolfier brothers invented the hot air balloon in 1783. The hydrogen balloon was also invented in 1783. In 1785 two men flew over the English Channel in a hydrogen balloon. Transportation in the 19th Century In the mid 19th century transport was revolutionized by railways. They made travel much faster. (They also removed the danger of highwaymen). The Stockton and Darlington railway opened in 1825. However the first major railway was from Liverpool to Manchester. It opened in 1830. In the 1840s there was a huge boom in building railways and most towns in Britain were connected. In the late 19th century many branch lines were built connecting many villages. The first underground railway in Britain was built in London in 1863. Steam locomotives pulled the carriages. The first electric underground trains began running in London in 1890. The Central Line opened in 1900.

The Bakerloo Line and the Piccadilly Line both opened in 1906. Meanwhile the Paris Metro opened in 1900. From 1829 horse drawn omnibuses began running in London. They soon followed in other towns. In the 1860s and 1870s horse drawn trams began running in many towns. Meanwhile the first traffic lights were installed in London in 1868. They were worked by gas and unfortunately they soon blew up. Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler made the first cars in 1885 and 1886. The motorbike was patented in 1885. Cars developed quickly. The car heater was invented by Thomas Ahearn in 1890. Also in the 1880s the safety bicycle was invented and cycling soon became a popular hobby. Meanwhile at sea 19th century transportation was revolutionized by the steam ship. By 1815 steamships were crossing the English Channel. The Savannah became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic in 1819. Furthermore it used to take several weeks to cross the Atlantic.

Then in 1838 a steam ship called the Sirius made the journey in 19 days. However steam did not completely replace sail until the end of the 19th century when the steam turbine was used on ships. Life in the 19th Century Transportation in the 20th Century Transportation greatly improved during the 20th century. Although the first cars appeared at the end of the 19th century after the First World War they became cheaper and more common. However in 1940 only about one in 10 families in Britain owned a car. They increased in number after World War II. By 1959 32% of households owned a car. Yet cars only became really common in the 1960s. By the 1970s the majority of families owned one. In 1903 a speed limit of 20 MPH was introduced in Britain. It was abolished in 1930. However in 1934 a speed limit of 30 MPH in built-up areas was introduced. The first electric traffic lights were invented in the USA in 1914.

In Britain the first electric traffic lights were installed in London in 1925. Insurance for motorists was made compulsory in 1931. A driving test was introduced in 1934. Also in 1934 Percy Shaw invented the cat's eye. Meanwhile, in Britain the AA was formed in 1905. The parking meter was invented by a man named Carlton Magee. The first one was installed in the USA in 1935. A Swede named Nils Bohlin developed the three-point seat belt in 1959. In 1983 wearing a seat belt was made compulsory in Britain. Wheel clamps were introduced to Britain in 1983 and speed cameras in 1992. Meanwhile in Britain in 1936 Belisha Beacons were introduced to make road crossing safer. The first zebra crossing was introduced in 1949. The modern pelican crossing dates from 1969 and lollipop men and women were first introduced in 1969. In 1931 an American called Rolla N. Harger invented the first breathalyzer.

It was first used in Indianapolis USA in 1939. In Britain double yellow lines at the sides of the roads meaning no parking were introduced in 1958. Meanwhile in the late 19th century horse drawn trams ran in many towns in Britain. At the beginning of the 20th century they were electrified. However in most towns trams were phased out in the 1930s. They gave way to buses, either motor buses or trolley buses, which ran on overhead wires. The trolleybuses, in turn were phased out in the 1950s. Ironically at the end of the 20th century some cities re-introduced light railways. In the mid-20th century there was a large network of branch railways in Britain. However in 1963 a minister called Dr. Beeching closed many of them. The hovercraft was invented in 1955. The first hovercraft passenger service began in 1962. Meanwhile a completely new form of transport began. In 1919 planes began carrying passengers between London and Paris. (The first plane flight in Britain was made in 1908).

The first passenger jet service began in 1952. However in the early 20th century flight was a luxury few people could afford. Furthermore only a small minority could afford foreign travel. Foreign holidays only became common in the 1960s. The Boeing 747, the first 'Jumbo jet' was introduced in 1970 and The Channel Tunnel opened in 1994. Life in the 20th Century Transportation in the 21st Century The next step in transport will probably be commercial suborbital space flight. At the moment it is still in the future and at first it will inevitably be very expensive but it will eventually become cheap enough for ordinary people to afford. Parking meter - 必应 Sign in Parking meter Parking meters installed by municipalities are considered legal if the parking meters are used for purposes of parking regulation and not for revenue purposes.[citation needed] In a 1937 case in Oklahoma, H.E. Duncan contended that the ordinances impose a fee for the free use of the streets, which is a right of all citizens of the state granted by state law.

The Courts ruled that free use of the streets is not an absolute right, but agreed with an unpublished[citation needed] 1936 Florida court decision that said, "If it had been shown that the streets on which parking meters have been installed under this ordinance are not streets where the traffic is sufficiently heavy to require any parking regulations ... (展开) of this sort, or that the city was making inordinate and unjustified profits by means of the parking meters, and was resorting to their use not for regulatory purposes but for revenue only, there might have been a different judgment." One of the first parking meter tickets resulted in the first court challenge to metered parking enforcement. Rev. C.H. North of Oklahoma's City's Third Pentecostal Holiness Church had his citation dismissed when he claimed he had gone to a grocery store to get change for the meter. The North Carolina Supreme Court judged that a city could not pledge on-street parking meter fee proceeds as security for bonds issued to build off-street parking decks. The court said, "Streets of a municipality are provided for public use.

A city board has no valid authority to rent, lease or let a parking space on the streets to an individual motorist 'for a fee' or to charge a rate or toll therefor. Much less may it lease or let the whole system of on-street parking meters for operation by a private corporation or individual." A 2009 lawsuit filed by the Independent Voters of Illinois -Independent Precinct Organization (IVI-IPO) claimed the City of Chicago ’s 2008 concession agreement for the operation of its parking meters to a private company violated state law. In November 2010, portions of the suit were thrown out by the Cook County Circuit Court, including the claim that the city was using public funds unlawfully to enforce parking regulations after it was decided by the presiding judge that the city retained its ability to write tickets and enforce parking laws. However, the judge allowed other parts of the suit to stand, including an accusation that the city unlawfully conceded some of its policing power and its ability to set parking and traffic policy to the private company in the concession agreement.

As of January 2011, the suit remained active, with the City of Chicago maintaining that the city retains all policing power, maintains responsibility for traffic management, and, through the concession agreement, retains control over rates. Who came up with the idea for the 'parking meter' for donations i... 答 The concept has been around for at least a few years, in many different cities in the U.S., Canada, and other countries. meter or lot是什么意思？停车是不同计费方式吗？ 答 parking meter(also meter) 是停车收费器parking lot 是停车场-meter可构成复合词,表示什么器，什么计，什么仪，e.g.speedmeter 速度计 altimeter测高仪lot在这里是名词，表示“一块地”,而parking lot是一个很常见的词语，译为“停车场”，通常我们在街上看到的“P”的标志就是... CDMA 1x 无线模块的应用中有上面这句话。 请问其中文含义是什么？ 谢谢。 答 Parking meter History An early patent for a parking meter, US patent, was filed by Roger W. Babson, on August 30, 1928.

The meter was intended to operate on power from the battery of the parking vehicle and required a connection from the vehicle to the meter. Holger George Thuesen and Gerald A. Hale designed the first working parking meter, the Black Maria, in 1935. The History Channel's... History's Lost and Found documents their success in developing the first working parking meter. Thuesen and Hale were engineering professors at Oklahoma State and began working on the parking meter in 1933 at the request of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma lawyer and newspaper publisher Carl C. Magee. The world's first installed parking meter was in Oklahoma City on July 16, 1935. Magee received a patent for the apparatus on 24 May 1938. Industrial production started in 1936 and expanded until the mid-1980s. The first models were based on a coin acceptor, a dial to engage the mechanism and a visible pointer and flag to indicate expiration of paid period.

This configuration lasted for more than 40 years, with only a few changes in the exterior design, such as a double-headed design (to cover two adjacent parking spaces), and the incorporation of new materials and production techniques. M.H. Rhodes Inc. of Hartford, Connecticut started making meters for Mark-Time Parking Meter Company of Miami, where the first Rhodes meters were installed in 1936. These were different from the Magee design because only the driver's action of turning a handle was necessary to keep the spring wound, while Magee's meters needed a serviceman to wind the spring occasionally. Upon insertion of coins into a currency detector slot or swiping a credit card or smartcard into a slot, and turning a handle (or pressing a key), a timer is initiated within the meter. Some locations now allow payment by mobile phone (to remotely record payments for subsequent checking and enforcement). A dial or display on the meter indicates the time remaining. In many cities, all parking meters are designed to use only one type of coin. Use of other coins will fail to register, and the meter may cease to function altogether. For example, in Hackensack, New Jersey all parking meters are designed for quarters only.

In 1960, New York City hired its first crew of "meter maids"; all were women. It was not until 1967 that the first man was hired. In the mid-1980s, a digital version was introduced, replacing the mechanical parts with electronic components: boards, keyboards and displays. This allowed more flexibility to the meter, as an EEPROM chip can be reconfigured more easily than corresponding mechanical components. By the beginning of the 1990s, millions of parking meter units had been sold around the world, but the market was already looking into new solutions, like the collective pay and display machines and new forms of payment that appeared along with electronic money and communication technologies. Fully electrical See also: Pay by phone parking More modern parking meters are generically called multispace meters (as opposed to single space meters) and control multiple spaces per block (typically 8-12) or lot (unlimited). While with these meters the parker may have to walk several car lengths to the meter, there are significant benefits in terms of customer service, performance and efficiency.

Multispace meters incorporate more customer-friendly features such as on-screen instructions and acceptance of credit cards for payment—no longer do drivers have to have pockets full of coins. While they still may be prone to coin jams and other types of vandalism, most of these meters are wireless and can report problems immediately to maintenance staff, who can then fix the meters so that they are not out of service for very long. With pay by space meters, the driver parks in a space, goes to the meter and enters the space number and makes payment. The meter memorizes the time remaining, and enforcement personnel press the bay buttons to check for violations. Other advances with parking meters include vehicle detection technology, which allows the pay by space meters to know when there is a car parked in a space. This opens the door for benefits for parking managers, including providing way-finding (directing drivers to unoccupied spaces via the web or via street signs), enabling remote violation detection, and gathering vital statistics about parking supply and demand. Some meters allow payment for additional time by phone, and notify drivers when they are about to expire.

Parking meters in Santa Monica use vehicle detectors to prevent drivers from "feeding the meter" indefinitely, and to delete remaining time when a car departs so the next car cannot take any time without paying. Meters in Madrid give discounted and free parking to drivers of hybrid and electric vehicles, respectively. Drivers can reserve meters spots in Los Angeles by cellphone. Another advancement with parking meters are the new solar-powered meters that accept credit cards and still coins as well. They were installed in Los Angeles in 2010, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa stated “the city’s Department of Transportation had projected the 10,000 Coin & Card parking meters installed over the last six months would generate 1-1.5 million in revenue each year”. These parking meters replace the top of the meter, but use the existing pole, and use solar power, which can help with sending technicians a wireless signal when in need for repair. These credit card machines accept Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, and can vary at different locations.

DDOT (the District of Columbia Department of Transportation) states that this new parking meter will provide: “better return on tax payer’s investment, a variety of options, reduced maintenance, a variety of easy payment options, and increased reliability”. New digital meters now account for all of New York City's 62,000 single-space parking meters, which are more accurate and more difficult to break into. New York City retired its last spring-loaded, single-space, mechanical parking meter – which was located at West 10th Street and Surf Avenue in Coney Island – on December 20, 2006. “The world changes. Just as the [subway] token went, now the manual meter has gone,” said Iris Weinshall, the city’s transportation commissioner, at a small ceremony marking the occasion, the New York Times reported. Security issues Parking meters are exposed to the elements and to vandals so protection of the device and its cash contents is a priority. The meters are frequently targeted in areas where parking regulations and enforcement are widely perceived to be unfair and predatory.[citation needed] Some cities have learned the hard way that these machines must be upgraded regularly, essentially playing an arms race with vandals.

In Berkeley, California, the cut-off remains of meter poles were a common sight during the late 1990s, and parking was largely free throughout the city until the city government installed digital parking meters with heavier poles in 2000 (which were eventually vandalized as well). Parking meter Alternatives In the US states of Texas, Maryland, California, Massachusetts, Utah, Virginia, and the whole of the European Union (except many private car parks in the UK and possibly elsewhere), holders of a Disabled parking permit are exempt from parking meter fees. In some other states handicapped parking meters exist, which not only must be paid at the same rate as regular meters, but one will also be subject to receiving a violation ticket if a valid handicap license plate or placard is not displayed on the vehicle. Some cities have gone to a device called a Parkulator, in which the users purchase a display device, usually for $5 or $10, then load it with as much time as they care to purchase. They then activate the device when they park at a location, and place the display device on their dashboard so it is visible from the front windshield. The device counts down the time remaining on the device while it remains activated.

When they return, then the clock stops running, and the person does not overpay for time unused. In the UK, it is now possible to park and pay with credit or debit card through a dedicated telephone service. Civil Enforcement Officers that patrol the parking area are automatically informed through their handheld devices. In-vehicle parking meters Main article: In-Vehicle Parking Meter An In-Vehicle Parking Meter (IVPM) (also known as in-vehicle personal meter, in-car parking meter, or personal parking meter) is a handheld electronic device, the size of a pocket calculator, that drivers display in their car windows either as a parking permit or as proof of parking payment. Implementation of IVPM began in the late 1980s in Arlington, VA, and is spreading to campuses and municipalities worldwide as a centralized method of parking management, revenue collection, and compliance enforcement. There have since been similar adaptations including the Comet and SmartPark by Ganis Systems, EasyPark by Parx (a subsidiary of On Track Innovations), ParkMagic by ParkMagic Ireland, iPark by Epark, and AutoParq by Duncan Industries. Another technology offers the possibility of reloading money (parking time) to the device via a secure Internet site.

^ Chan, Sewell. "New York Retires Last Mechanical Parking Meter." The New York Times. 20 December 2006 ^ "Inglewood Website - News Details". Cityofinglewood.org. Retrieved 19 August 2013. ^ "Park-O-Meter". Pom.com. 16 July 1935. Retrieved 19 August 2013. ^ "Coin-in-Slot Parking Meter Brings Revenue to City" Popular Mechanics, October 1935 mid-right side of page article ^ Tick, Tick, Tick, Smithsonian Magazine, May 2008, p. 18 ^ "How A Parking Meter Works." Popular Science, December 1959, pp. 138-139 ^ Leonard, Teresa (26 August 2015). "Parking meters found their way onto NC streets in 1930s, ‘40s". News & Observer. Retrieved 27 August 2015. ^ Wisdom, Martin. "Pay For DC Parking Meters By Cell Phone". My FOX DC. Retrieved 21 January 2011. ^ "Traffic Division".

City of Hackensack. Retrieved 21 January 2011. ^ Dougherty, Conor (3 February 2007). "The Parking Fix". The Wall Street Journal. ^ "Pay Parking | City of White Rock". Whiterockcity.ca. 5 October 2012. Retrieved 19 August 2013. ^ Media:ParkingmeterDowntownHoustonTexas.JPG ^ Kupferman, Dan. "Why Multi-Space parking meters?". Parking Network. Retrieved 13 January 2011. ^ ^ ^ Mathis, Sommer. "D.C. Testing Solar-Powered, Credit Card Parking Meters". DCist. Retrieved 12 January 2011. ^ Lovelace, Dennis. "New Credit Card-Use Parking Meters Raking In The Dough". My FOX LA. Retrieved 12 January 2011. ^ "DDOT Starts Installation of New Solar-Powered Single Space Meters". District Department of Transportation. Retrieved 12 January 2011. ^ Chan, Sewell (20 December 2006). "New York Retires Last Mechanical Parking Meter". The New York Times.

Retrieved 10 January 2015. ^ Demian Bulwa, "Chicanery tops meters in Berkeley: Vandals wanting to park free put city in yet another jam," San Francisco Chronicle, 25 January 2004, A21 ^ "OSCN Found Document:Ex parte DUNCAN". Oscn.net. 10 December 1936. Retrieved 12 November 2010. ^ STATE, EX REL. v. McCARTHY, casetext.com ^ "Inc Magazine, 1 October 2002". Inc.com. 1 October 2002. Retrieved 19 August 2013. ^ Britt v. Wilmington, 236 N.C. 446, 73 S.E.2d 289 (1952) ^ "Independent Voters of Illinois Independent Precinct v. State of Illinois" (PDF). Circuit Court of Cook County, IL. Retrieved 24 January 2011. ^ a b Dumke, Mick. "Parking Meter Lawsuit Allowed to Proceed". Chicago News Cooperative.

Retrieved 24 January 2011. ^ Saffold, CFO City of Chicago, Gene. "Letter Concerning IVI-IPO Lawsuit" (PDF). City of Chicago. Retrieved 24 January 2011. ^ Baxter, Brian. "Chicago's $1.16 Billion Parking Meter Privatization 'A Watershed Event'". The AM Law Daily. Retrieved 24 January 2011. ^ Elizabeth Press (20 December 2007). "Illustrating Parking Reform with Dr. Shoup". Streetfilms. Retrieved 12 November 2010. ^ Hill-Holtzman, Nancy (19 January 1992). "Portable Parking Meters a Tick Away". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 18 January 2011. ^ Leyden, John. "Park and pay by mobile comes to London". The Register. Retrieved 18 January 2011. ^ "Parking Today". Parking Today. Retrieved 19 August 2013. ^ "Electronic iPark Devices Available Again". ARLnow.com. Retrieved 19 August 2013.

^ "Comet Personal Parking Meter". Ganisparking.com. Retrieved 19 August 2013. ^ "EasyPark|Personal Parking Meter". EasyPark USA. Retrieved 19 August 2013. ^ "New Customers". Bookings.parkmagic.net. Retrieved 19 August 2013. Oklahoma City site of first parking meter.

(Historic film) "Parking Meters Yield $50,000 A Year" 1951 article with excellent illustration of coin operated meters Articles from the Wausau Daily Herald Metergate from the SF Times (archived) Brink's 1978 parking meter theft Saskatoon, SK - the first Canadian City to offer cell phone parking payment option for its parking meters October 21, 2005 Parking meter payment by cell phone from Slashdot, June 26, 2006 Voice Of America Video New Parking Meter, calls you when time is up - with Pictures Sensor based parking meter with push enforcement, bike share, wayfinding, and validation Secure Storage Technologies Smart Parking Meter The Case of the Parking Meter Thief, FBI First Parking Meter Installed July 16, 1935 | theexpiredmeter.com First Parking Meter Installed July 16, 1935 July 16, 2008 Parking Meter Today, in 1935, the very first parking meter was installed at the corner of First Street and Robinson Avenue, in downtown Oklahoma City, OK Carlton Cole “Carl” Magee, attorney and newspaper editor was the fiendish, evil

, bastard genius who invented this motorist tormenting device 73 years ago.

As the story goes Magee, came up with the idea shortly after he was named Chairman of the Oklahoma City’s Chamber of Commerce Traffic Committee in 1933. In his quest to design a working parking meter, he sought the help of Gerald A. Hale and Professor H.G. Thuesen over at Oklahoma State University, whom assisted Magee in making his idea a reality. According to an article by Bonnie Loyd, in the Spring, 1988 edition of Whole Earth Review: By the 1930s automobiles were flooding America, and parking was first becoming a problem. Downtown merchants worried because business suffered when parking spots were clogged with the same cars all day long. Carl Magee, an Oklahoma newspaperman with a checkered past, thought up a solution — a coin-operated timer — but he didn’t know how to make it work. Two professors at Oklahoma State University (Prof. H.G. Thueson and Gerald A.Hale–ed. geek) listened to Magee’s idea and developed an operating model.

The first 150 parking meters were installed in downtown Oklahoma City on 16 July 1935 (allegedly installed them under the cover of darkness!–ed. geek). The meters charged a nickel an hour. They were not a hit. Many citizens were outraged. They claimed it was un-American to pay for parking, and some initiated court actions to remove the meters. The battle attracted national attention, but the meters stayed. According to accounts Oklahoma City paid a whopping $23 per parking meter to the Dual Parking Meter Company–the company Magee founded to manufacture parking meters. It was named “Dual” because, as the story goes, the meters served two purposes, one for controlling parking and two, for revenue generation. By 1951, just 16 years later, one million parking meters dotted the American scene. Magee died in Tulsa, OK in 1946. However, his infernal invention, unfortunately, lives on. Magee’s meter No. 1 currently resides within a glass case in the State Museum of History in Oklahoma City. GEEK NOTE: Some accounts list July 14th or 15th as this red letter day in American history.

However, most records, including the Oklahoma History Center , have it listed as July 16th. 10 Responses to First Parking Meter Installed July 16, 1935 10 Famous People Who Did Great Things In Other Fields - Listverse 10 Famous People Who Did Great Things In Other Fields B. J. Deming April 28, 2015 Things go a lot smoother when we file information into one particular niche or another during our daily business. We do this even though it sometimes means missing really interesting stuff that doesn’t fit into our immediate goals. Not everybody can be so selective. Some, like Ben Franklin, are curious enough to pursue and master anything that catches their attention. Few of us are as multitalented as Franklin, but there are some famous people who did amazing things in other fields and never got the same public recognition for it. 10Isaac Newton Isaac Newton was born in the middle of the 17th century and laid the foundation of modern science . Today, he’s famous for describing gravity, working out the laws of motion, and being one of the inventors of calculus, among other nerdy things .

What most of us don’t know is that, at one point in his life, Newton also worked in England’s Royal Mint , eventually becoming its Master. (This may or may not be his job description in the upcoming Newtonian crime-fighting thriller .) Reorganizing a country’s currency sounds much less exciting than police work, but it’s just as important in the long run. As part of his work in the Royal Mint, Newton first reorganized England’s coinage, and then Scotland’s when that country joined the UK. He became good friends with his counterparts in the Edinburgh Mint while establishing a common currency between the two countries, so he is also responsible for helping to improve diplomatic relations at a turning point in British history. 9Charles Babbage Charles Babbage, an early 19th-century English mathematician, is known as “ the father of computing .” He invented Difference Engine No. 1—a machine to help astronomers do complex calculations. It was the world’s first successful automatic calculator. Punch cards, chains and assemblies, and modern computer logic all developed from it. Fifteen years later, Babbage tried to build a machine that could receive and understand commands.

It didn’t work out, but this idea set up the foundation for today’s computer programming . But that’s nothing compared to the cows. Railways were just becoming a thing in Babbage’s day. He saw the need for something that would remove obstacles on the track while protecting people in the cab. When he wasn’t working on calculating machines or doing math, Charles Babbage invented the cow catcher —that pointy thing on the front of old-time locomotives. It’s also called the pilot. Pilots are still used today, although their design is different. Quite often they include snow plows because, let’s face it, snow plows on a train are awesome . 8Michael Faraday If not for this 19th-century English scientist, we might still be using electricity only for party tricks. Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction, a key part of modern transformers and generators. He was also the first to describe the electromagnetic principle that makes modern electric motors work. Besides having scientific units named after him , Michael Faraday also coined the words “cathode,” “electrode,” and “ion.” But no one remembers that he also invented rubber balloons .

One day in 1824, Faraday put two thin sheets of rubber together with a little flour in between so they wouldn’t stick. Then he sealed the edges and pumped in hydrogen, noting that this new container floated easily in the air . 7Charles Darwin Photo credit: Robert Ashby Collection No two words in the English language fit together better than “Darwin” and “evolution.” After the five-year voyage of the HMS Beagle in the mid-19th century, Charles Darwin explained the diversity that he had seen in nature by natural selection, a process in which “the strongest live and the weakest die .” It was a revolutionary idea. But Darwin should also be remembered for his geology work on that voyage. Science wasn’t as specialized back then. His job on the Beagle was to study everything in nature, not just plants and animals. Think of him as the ship’s “science officer,” although he was much more human than Mr. Spock. Charles Darwin actually went straight to the Beagle from a field trip in Wales where he had been studying rock formations.

We’ve already told you about his interest in earthquakes , but his work on things like coral atolls and volcanoes was so good that he would be famous for that even if he hadn’t also laid the basis for modern evolutionary theory. 6Alexander Graham Bell Photo credit: William James You just thought of your phone, right? It’s fitting. Bell was trying to make a “smart telegraph” capable of sending multiple messages over a single telegraph wire when he made the decision to use acoustic signals instead of dots and dashes and came up with the telephone. He’s also connected with your music. Bell’s mother was deaf, so he set up an institute to study deafness, where he refined the phonograph and developed better ways to record sound . Alexander Graham Bell was obviously very creative. You’ve heard about his metal detector , but did you know that he’s also one of the pioneers of human flight? In 1907, four years after the Wright brothers did very brief powered flights at Kitty Hawk, a man flew for seven minutes in a tetrahedral kite that Bell had invented.

Convinced that a motor and propeller would work on the kite, Bell then formed the Aerial Experiment Association with Glenn Curtiss and other early aviation innovators to make it happen. It didn’t, but the association made many significant contributions to aeronautics. That’s why Bell is now enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame . 5William Howard Taft Photo credit: Library of Congress Mr. Taft was a US president, although he only served one term and was, as the White House website puts it, an “effective administrator, but poor politician .” How poor? Let’s just say that in 2013, people celebrated the 100-year anniversary of the end of his presidency (and pointed out that, while he was fat, he probably didn’t really get stuck in a bathtub ). But William Howard Taft should also be famous for his work as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after he left the White House, because he totally redefined the Court’s role. Have you ever heard about some controversial legal case where everybody was on pins and needles, waiting to see if the Supreme Court would take it? That’s the Taft effect. Before he came along, the Court was required to hear every case.

Now the justices can speed things up by only listening to the most important appeals . Taft was also responsible for getting Congressional approval for the construction of the beautiful building the Court meets in today, although he didn’t live long enough to see it completed . 4Charles Lindbergh Photo credit: Library of Congress In 1927, a former mail and stunt pilot named Charles Lindbergh became the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic (but not the first to fly across ). Afterward, he used his fame and love of aviation to set up a transcontinental US airmail route as well as the forerunners of today’s big airline companies. Lindbergh even helped Robert Goddard, the original rocket scientist , get a research facility. Very few people know that Charles Lindbergh also did successful biomedical research. He was curious about heart surgery and organ transplants because his sister-in-law had a bad heart . Top researchers of the day said that surgery wasn’t possible because of infection and coagulation problems. Lindbergh stopped flying for a while and developed a perfusion device that kept organs alive and healthy without infection. 3Carl Magee Carlton Cole Magee was a crusading newspaper publisher.

In the 1920s, he bought an Albuquerque newspaper from US Senator Albert Fall, who also gave Magee an inside look at the state’s ugly machine politics . Magee was appalled by what he learned and used his newspaper to expose political corruption. Things finally came to a head in the Teapot Dome Scandal, the biggest political corruption case in the United States before Watergate. Albert Fall, who was then the US Secretary of the Interior, went to prison as a result of Magee’s testimony. Before you start cheering, you should know that in 1935, after he moved to Oklahoma City, Carl Magee invented the parking meter . He was now chairman of the local Chamber of Commerce traffic committee, and downtown retailers were screaming about all-day parking keeping shoppers away. There were parking limits in effect, but police based their ticketing on tire chalk marks, which could be easily manipulated. Magee solved the problem by inventing a coin-operated meter that was so effective that other US cities soon adopted it . 2Bill Lear It’s hard to believe that the Learjet has its roots in biplanes.

In 1931, William Powell Lear bought a biplane and soloed in it after only two and a half hours of instruction. He wholeheartedly threw himself into aviation after that, and in the 1960s, he realized that the world needed a small private jet. He was right: Lear sold $52 million worth of aircraft in his first year . That would have been $391 million dollars in 2014. Believe it or not, “Big Bill” Lear should also be famous for inventing eight-track tapes . It makes sense when you know more about him. He had always been fascinated by radio, and in 1930 he co-designed the first car radio . By 1945, he was successful enough to license wire recording technology from Chicago’s Armour Research Laboratory. By 1963, he was a distributor for four-track tapes developed by Earl “Madman” Muntz and was unhappy with the technology. Over the next two years, he redesigned the whole thing, coming up with a tape that held eight high-quality recordings that played in an endless loop.

1Dean Kamen Photo via Wikimedia Few people think of the Segway when Dean Kamen’s name comes up. Kamen invented the self-balancing electric scooter in 2001, and it was the man he sold the company to, not Kamen himself, who died in a Segway accident in 2010. Meanwhile, Dean Kamen is still inventing. Did you know that he invented the very first portable drug infusion pump before he came up with the Segway? He did it after his brother, a medical student, told him how tough it was on outpatients who needed medicine around the clock, because they had to make frequent hospital visits. Kamen founded the AutoSyringe Company in 1976 and then sold it in 1982 for millions of dollars. Now he’s working on a device that will convert any water, no matter how dirty, into clean drinking water . We’ll leave it to you to decide whether all this creativity entitles him to have his own personal nation . Barb likes to blog about Earth science and the American Civil War at . She also has recently published a book called The Soldier and the Monk and is working on a nonfiction book about the very first cat.

More Great Lists The parking meter clocks up 50 years | London Evening Standard The parking meter clocks up 50 years David Williams , Motoring Editor Tuesday 10 June 2008 12:07 BST It's not an anniversary drivers are expected to celebrate, but the parking meter is 50 years old today. The first meter in Britain went up in Grosvenor Square, near the US Embassy in Westminster, on 10 June 1958. Then, parking for one hour cost six shillings, compared with £4 in the same location today. Fines too were less punitive then. Those who overstayed or neglected to pay at all received a £2 penalty. Today, central London fines are £120, reduced to £60 for prompt payment. A year ago, Westminster announced that parking meters were to disappear from central London altogether. The borough's 3,700 meters are being replaced by a pay-by-phone system and some pay and display machines. Motorists register to set up an account and pay for parking by sending a mobile phone text message quoting their registration number and bay number. The cost is then debited from their account.

The parking meter was invented by American Carlton C Magee in Oklahoma in 1935. The first models were clockwork and needed winding up with a large key. Self-winding meters were introduced in the Seventies but by 1990 they were seen as unreliable and were replaced with electronic ones. Many are now solar-powered. More about:

Question: What did Carlton Magee devise in the US for motorists?
Answer: Parking Meter